Economie

UNVDA To Acquire New Rice Production Equipment

Board Chair, General Manager say Japan is putting the project on fast track.

A new chapter may soon open for farmers of the Upper Nun Valley Development Authority (UNVDA) with projects lined up to enhance rice production and rural development. Curtains dropped on UNVDA’s 50th ordinary Board meeting on August 5th, 2016 with breaking news for farmers. Board Chairman and General Manager, Tikela Kemonne and Chin Richard Wirnkar respectively, revealed that Japanese partners of the agro industry are about to help UNVDA acquire state of the art equipment to tackle rural roads, agricultural farm machinery, civil engineering equipment and the acquisition of a new rice Mill.

The good news for farmers of the Ndop plain was stressed when the General Manager, Chin Richard told Cameroon Tribune that the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development was in Japan recently where he visited some of the factories that manufacture the farm equipment and validated UNVDA’s requests.

It is also good news that on the strength of instructions by the Prime Minister, Head of Government, UNVDA now features on the government’s three-year contingency plan to help some state corporations produce results. It is against this background that the UNVDA has mounted a series of projects in the area of acquisition of more farm equipment and disinclining more production basins. On-the-spot in Ndop we gathered that in the months ahead, the worries of farmers about the none payment of the rice produced and the poor state of roads will soon be history.

The Agro industry with head office in Ndop, Ngoketungia Division was among very few state corporations that were privileged with invitations to participate at the May 17th and 18th , 2016 International Investment conference in Cameroon under the theme “ Investing in Cameroon-Land of attractiveness”. The UNVDA team leader to the conference, Chin Richard also told Cameroon Tribune that it was an opportunity to shop funds to realize some of the rural infrastructure, production equipment, processing and value added chain addition equipment required by the agro industry.

The massive projects expected to give UNVDA a fresh push to develop 15.000 hectares of land bequeath to them, includes the estimated FCFA 8.5 billion in the Babungo and Ndop plain. UNVDA’s Director of Rural Engineering, Francis Fonayi Waindim, says they include a request of FCFA 3.3 billion to fund the rehabilitation of 1,000 hectares of rice fields in Babungo, Baba I, Monoun and Bangolan, FCFA 1.6 billion for the rehabilitation of bulk paddy storage, cleaning and processing in Ndop and FCFA 3.6 billion to construct a new rice Mill (Country Elevator) and facilities in Babungo.